I loved the movie since the first time a saw it, to some it may be just another coming of age film but I really find it cleansing and the way in which it portrays human nature is rare to find plus a je n'sais quoi that moves me every time. A valuable piece to any DVD collection.

I watched this on a recommendation from a friend, not really knowing anything about it going in, except that it was based on the novel by the late Chris Fuhrman. I sort of expected a routine coming-of-age story -- but while it focuses on a small group of adolescent Catholic schoolboys (and one girl) growing up in Savannah in the 1970s, it's anything but routine. Francis Doyle (Emile Hirsch, a newcomer to me) and Tim Sullivan (Kieran Culkin, who is a better actor than his better-known brother) are struggling with their hormones and boredom and the discipline meted out by an especially strict nun (Jodie Foster, who nicely underplays the role). Francis is in love for the first time with Margie Flynn (Jena Malone), who seems as innocent and tentative as he is -- but she has a secret, and another secret within that, both of which she eventually shares with Francis. Who finally has to share his burden and tells Tim, who can't quite keep his mouth shut, either. Francis is a talented artist and the four friends contribute plots and characters to an ongoing superhero comic book Francis draws. (Sister Assumpta, of course, is "Nunzilla," the villain of the piece.) The live action is interspersed with the boys' animated alter egos, which is an interesting way of getting the viewer inside their heads and emotions. The third plotline involves a cougar kept at a small zoo, which becomes the focus of an extreme prank planned against Sister Assumpta -- but which (not unexpectedly) ends in extreme tragedy. The film starts off lightheartedly, gradually becoming darker and more serious as the various plotlines progress. The acting is first-rate, especially considering Foster and Vincent D'Onofrio (as Father Casey, also underplaying his few scenes) are the only adults with more than a single line. As an aside, Jodie Foster was forty years old here but she looks no more than twenty-five. Amazing. An affecting film.

The Secret Lives of Altar Boys can be pretty raw in language and deeds, perhaps a bit preteniously so in places, and yet, it merely sets the stage for who these boys are and where they are on the evolutionary scale. There is a tendency in the beginning to show that these boys are rather "charmed", which makes it that much more startling when their luck runs out in a rather grusome manner. Vincent D'Onofrio does a fine job playing the priest who is quite willing to endure the misbehavior of the boys, until he gets an inside look of how they see him. Then, he takes a more serious tone, searching for where he went wrong with the lads? While not trying to give away the ending, the "loss" isn't really dealt with in a satisfying way. One would have hoped that a stronger moral character developed as a result, rather than the launching of what might have been in that age the same as becoming a rock star today. There was a feeling that the character suffered, yes, but failed to "grow".

This movie will not fail to entertain. It's quite believable. In fact, in places, it's "award worthy" - especially when they find a dog by the roadside - excellently done!

This was given 5 stars because when it was good it was so good that it's not to be missed. This is an "adult" movie...definately not for young children.

i first saw this movie maybe...5 years ago...and i still enjoy watching it from time to time...this movie shows the lives of a group of alter boys as they go through school and the everyday jams...the acting is great...the story is great...i love everything about this movie...the ending is pretty sad...i think this movie will make most people laugh about the stuff they did when they were younger...(not to say that anyone ever did the stuff from the movie...but just referring to stupid stuff that kids do)

def get this movie as a rental or just pick it up used and watch it with some friends

The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (Peter Care, 2002)

I wanted to hate this movie. And for the first half, I did a pretty good job. There's just something about any film touched by a member of the Culkin clan (the last movie I remember seeing with a Culkin in it that I really liked was Jacob's Ladder) that manages to rub me the wrong way; it's like someone took a whole slew of Albert Brooks clones and put them into a single family. By the end of this, however, I admit I was hooked.

The story centers on Francis Doyle (Lords of Dogtown's Emile Hirsch) and Tim Sullivan (Kieran Culkin), two Catholic-school students who are part of a small collective of artists working on a comic book called The Atomic Trio. The comic book, which is pretty nasty by any standards, is considered positively obscene by the teachers, when they discover it, in no small part because one of the villains is modeled after Sister Assumpta (Jodie Foster). When she gets hold of the thing, she takes it to the headmaster, Father Casey (Voncent D'Onofrio), whose boys-will-be-boys attitude doesn't make her terribly happy. Not that that matters to the kids, who retaliate by planning the biggest prank the school's ever seen. Of course, they hold the previous record, having nicked a statue from the school's bell tower and hidden it in a nearby mausoleum, which has become the group's de facto clubhouse. Everything gets more complex when Francis finds himself attracted to fellow student Margie Flynn (Jena Malone of the forthcoming The Ruins).

About the best thing I can say about the first half of the film is that it's not terrible. It's competently done, but it's all setup, and it's not very interesting setup at that. Once they start planning their harebrained prank, however, things pick up nicely, and we finally start getting a feeling for these characters. Screenwriters Jeff Stockwell and Michael Petroni open the storyline up a bit, introducing us to a more interesting batch of folks than we've met previously (namely Margie's very off-the-wall family, who despite getting almost no screen time steal the show) and giving us a lot more insight into most of the characters we already know. The odd exception is Sister Assumpta, who remains as much a two-dimensional villain as the artistic renderings of her done by her students.

In the end, it's not bad, but it could have been a great deal better, and the second half is proof of that. ** ½